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“I’d heard tell of distinction and fame, and people’s names never dying, and how Washington and Franklin, and Clay and Jackson, and a heap of political dicshunary-folks, would live when their big hearts had crumbled down to a rifle-charge of dust; and I begun, too, to think, Doc, what a pleasant thing it would be to know folks a million years off would talk of me like them, and it made me ‘tarmine to ‘stinguish myself, and have my name put in a book with a yaller kiver. I warn’t a genus, Doc, I nude that, nor I warn’t dicshunary; so I determined to strike out in a new track for glory, and ‘title myself to be called the ‘bear-hunter of Ameriky.’ Doc, my heart jumpt up, and I belted my hunting-shirt tighter for fear it would lepe out when I fust spoke them words out loud.

” ‘The bar-hunter of Ameriky!’ Doc, you know whether I war ernin’ the name when I war ruined. There is not a child, white, black, Injun, or nigger, from the Arkansas line to Trinity, but what has heard of me, and I were happy when” – here a tremor of his voice and a tear glistening in the glare of the fire told the old fellow’s emotion – “when – but les take a drink – Doc, I found I was dying – I war gettin’ weaker and weaker – I nude your truck warn’t what I needed, or I’d sent for you. A bar-hunt war the medsin that my systum required, a fust class bar-hunt, the music of the dogs, the fellers a screaming, the cane poppin’, the rifles crackin’, the bar growlin’, the fight hand to hand, slap goes his paw, and a dog’s hide hangs on one cane and his body on another, the knife glistenin’ and then goin’ plump up to the handle in his heart! – Oh! Doc, this was what I needed, and I swore, since death were huggin’ me, anyhow, I mite as well feel his last grip in a bar-hunt.

“I seed the boys goin’ long one day, and haled them to wait awhile, as I believed I would go along too. I war frade if I kept out of a hunt much longer I wood get outen practis. They laughed at me, thinkin’ I war jokin’; for wat cood a sick, old, one-legged man do in a bar-hunt? how cood he get threw the swamp, and vines, and canes, and backwater? and s’pose he mist the bar, how war he to get outen the way?

“But I war ‘tarmined on goin’; my dander was up, and I swore I wood go, tellin’ them if I coodent travel ’bout much, I could take a stand. Seein’ it war no use tryin’ to ‘swade me, they saddled my poney, and off we started. I felt better right off. I knew I cuddent do much in the chase, so I told the fellers I would go to the cross-path stand, and wate for the bar, as he would be sarten to cum by thar. You have never seed the cross-path stand, Doc. It’s the singularest place in the swamp. It’s rite in the middle of a canebrake, thicker than har on a bar-hide, down in a deep sink, that looks like the devil had cummenst diggin’ a skylite for his pre-emption. I knew it war a dangersome place for a well man to go in, much less a one-leg cripple; but I war ‘tarmined that time to give a deal on the dead wood, and play my hand out. The boys gin me time to get to the stand, and then cummenst the drive. The bar seemed ‘tarmined on disappinting me, for the fust thing I heard of the dogs and bar, they was outen hearing. Everything got quiet, and I got so wrathy at not being able to foller up the chase, that I cust till the trees cummenst shedding their leaves and small branches, when I herd them lumbrin back, and I nude they war makin’ to me. I primed old ‘bar death’ fresh, and rubbed the frizin, for it war no time for rifle to get to snappin’. Thinks I, if I happen to miss, I’ll try what virtue there is
in a knife – when, Doc, my knife war gone. H-ll! bar, for God’s sake have a soft head, and die easy, for I can’t run!